HISD Board of Education approves
reduction in force

The Houston Independent School District
Board of Education on Thursday approved a reduction in force
for certain term- and continuing-contract employees.

Trustees approved the two annual reduction
in force (RIF) agenda items related to being able to execute
a reduction in force of teachers and other campus-based
employees, as well as certain central office employees who
hold term and continuing contracts.

“Approving a RIF is something we do
every year, but this year is much different because our
budget reality is such that we know our workforce will
actually be reduced unlike anything we’ve seen in recent
memory,” HISD Board of Education President Rhonda Skillern-Jones
said. “We wanted to make this decision in the most
responsible way possible and ensure we minimize the impact
to classrooms.”

These agenda items were originally
scheduled for consideration at the Board’s February
meeting, but trustees voted to delay a vote until March. The
updated agenda items that trustees approved exempted
employees in critical shortage areas from the RIF. Those
include, but are not limited to, secondary math, science,
and English, bilingual education, and some special education
critical shortage areas. Those critical shortage employees
may be reassigned within the district.
The Houston Independent School District Board of Education
on Thursday approved a reduction in force for certain term-
and continuing-contract employees.

Trustees approved the two annual reduction
in force (RIF) agenda items related to being able to execute
a reduction in force of teachers and other campus-based
employees, as well as certain central office employees who
hold term and continuing contracts.

“Approving a RIF is something we do
every year, but this year is much different because our
budget reality is such that we know our workforce will
actually be reduced unlike anything we’ve seen in recent
memory,” HISD Board of Education President Rhonda Skillern-Jones
said. “We wanted to make this decision in the most
responsible way possible and ensure we minimize the impact
to classrooms.”

These agenda items were originally
scheduled for consideration at the Board’s February
meeting, but trustees voted to delay a vote until March. The
updated agenda items that trustees approved exempted
employees in critical shortage areas from the RIF. Those
include, but are not limited to, secondary math, science,
and English, bilingual education, and some special education
critical shortage areas. Those critical shortage employees
may be reassigned within the district.

In the upcoming school year, staffing at
the campus level and within central office departments will
be impacted by budget and staffing changes aimed at
increasing equity across the district. Changes in funding
models will impact individual campuses differently. Some
campuses will lose staff, necessitating a reduction in
force, while other campuses will gain staff.

The need for a reduction in staff in the
upcoming school year is also due to the anticipated
reduction in revenues because of the potential decline in
property values as a result of Hurricane Harvey. A decline
in property value will decrease district revenue from
property taxes.

The board also approved the scheduling of
a series of Board workshops concerning budget development,
including centralization and decentralization models. The
workshops will include information concerning per-unit
allocation (PUA) and full-time equivalent (FTE) models. This
workshop is at the request of the Board in the interest of
transparency, equity, and good stewardship of public
resources. The first workshop is scheduled for March 22 at
11 a.m. The second is to be determined.

US hiring surge last month pulls in
flood of new workers

U.S. employers went on a hiring binge in
February, adding 313,000 jobs, amid rising business
confidence lifted by the Trump administration’s tax cuts
and a resilient global economy.

The surprisingly robust hiring, reported
by the Labor Department on Friday, was the strongest in 1½
years.

It was accompanied by the biggest surge in
15 years in the number of people either working or looking
for work. That kept the nation’s unemployment rate
unchanged for a fifth straight month at 4.1 percent.

At the same time, average wage growth
slowed to 2.6 percent in February from a year earlier. That
was down from January’s revised pace of 2.8 percent, which
had spooked investors because it raised fears of inflation.

The hiring boom caught many economists off
guard, because they expected a smaller — though still
healthy — increase. Job gains typically slow as the
unemployment rate falls, because companies run out of
workers to hire.

The economy has expanded for 104 straight
months, or nearly nine years, the third-largest expansion on
record, and hiring often declines as recessions fade further
into the past.

Yet job growth has accelerated in recent
months. Companies have added an average of 242,000 jobs a
month over the past three months, above 2017’s pace of
182,000.

“The February employment report was
unambiguously strong, confirming that the U.S. labor market
is on fire,” said Michelle Girard, chief U.S. economist at
NatWest Markets. “The pace of job growth is gaining
momentum — a very impressive development at this stage of
the economic cycle.”

The Trump administration’s tax cuts
appear to have lifted optimism among consumers and
businesses. U.S. employers have also benefited from a
strengthened global economy. And consumers are more
confident than they have been since 2000.

Investors celebrated the news, sending the
Dow Jones industrial average up 390 points in early
afternoon trading. The bull market reached its ninth
anniversary Friday, with market indexes nearly quadrupling
since March 2009.

The muted wage growth is a relief to Wall
Street, because faster raises could spur higher inflation
and additional interest rate increases from the Federal
Reserve.

The picture drawn by Friday’s jobs
report is a mixed one for the Fed, which seeks to raise
short-term interest rates at just the right pace: enough to
forestall inflation but not so fast as to slow economic
growth.

The Fed is considered certain to raise
rates when it next meets in two weeks. The question is
whether it will do so a total of three times this year —
or, in light of the job market’s strength and the prospect
of a pickup in inflation, four times.

The economy has now gained jobs for 89
straight months, the longest streak on record. That has
helped address many of the nation’s long-term problems
dating to the Great Recession.

For example, more Americans are coming off
the sidelines and looking for work, reversing a trend from
the first few years after the downturn when many of the
unemployed gave up on the job hunt and stopped looking.

The proportion of adults working or
looking for work jumped to 63 percent from 62.7 percent,
still far below its pre-recession levels in 2007. But it has
stabilized in the past three years, even as millions of baby
boomers have retired. That suggests that enough younger
people are stepping in to offset those retirements.

In fact, the proportion of adults in their
prime working years — defined as ages 25 to 54 — with
jobs rose sharply to 79.3 percent, just a few tenths of a
point below its pre-recession level.

Economists have found that figure is
closely related to wage growth: The higher it rises, the
more employers have to offer higher pay to find the workers
they need. That suggests that wage growth may accelerate
soon.

Higher-paying, blue-collar industries
reported some of the biggest increases. Construction firms
added 61,000 jobs, a figure that may have been inflated by
relatively warm weather last month. Still, that is the
biggest gain for construction since 2007.

Manufacturing companies added a solid
31,000 jobs. Retailers added 50,000, the most in two years,
though that figure was probably inflated by the fact that
stores laid off fewer temporary workers after the holidays
because they hired fewer than in previous years. Financial
services gained 28,000, the biggest increase since 2005.

In the meantime, economists are
calculating how the Trump administration’s decision Friday
to impose a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10
percent tariff on aluminum might affect the job market.

The Trade Partnership, a consulting firm,
estimates that the tariffs could eliminate 145,000 jobs.
Still, the administration has opened the door to so many
possible exemptions from the tariffs that an accurate
estimate is all but impossible.

Gene Peters, chief executive of Rosnet, a
restaurant software company, has had to offer higher pay to
attract new workers. He is now offering software developers
20 percent more in salary than he did just two years ago.

The company is also paying 75 percent of
employees’ health care costs, up from 50 percent. The
company, based in Parkville, Missouri, just outside Kansas
City, makes data analysis software that helps restaurants
track costs and work schedules.

“It’s getting more competitive in this
market,” Peters said. “There are more IT jobs and not as
many people.”

Black filmmakers make history at the
Box Office this weekend

T’Challa still rules the box office four
weeks in, even with the fresh rivalry of another Walt Disney
Studios release in “A Wrinkle in Time.”

“Black Panther” took the No. 1 spot at
the North American box office with $41.1 million according
to studio estimates Sunday, leaving another newcomer in its
wake. The Marvel and Disney phenomenon crossed the $1
billion mark worldwide this weekend and became the 7th
highest grossing domestic release with $562 million. Not
accounting for inflation, it’s now passed “The Dark
Knight.”

With a marketplace still dominated by
“Black Panther,” Disney faced some stiff competition
from its own studio in launching Ava DuVernay’s adaption
of “A Wrinkle in Time,” which opened in second place
with $33.3 million from 3,980 locations. The PG-rated film,
which cost around $103 million to produce and stars Oprah
Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon, received mixed reviews from
critics (it’s currently at a “rotten” 44 percent on
RottenTomatoes) and audiences who gave it a B CinemaScore.

In gauging “A Wrinkle in Time’s”
long-term prospects, a somewhat similar comparison could be
Disney’s “Tomorrowland,” a PG-rated sci-fi pic with
middling reviews and a B CinemaScore which opened to $33
million in the early summer of 2015 and went on to gross $93
million domestically. “Tomorrowland,” however, notably
cost nearly twice as much to make as “A Wrinkle in
Time.”

But the “Black Panther” effect is the
x-factor here. For Disney, it’s a “win all around.”

“When you think about having two films
at the top of the box office, it’s definitely a win all
around,” says Disney’s worldwide theatrical distribution
president Dave Hollis. “We’re feeling good about this
start … We’re feeling good about what, for us, is a
little family competition between now and (the Easter
holiday).”

Hollis says he doesn’t think the studio
would have done anything differently regarding
“Wrinkle’s” release had they known the scope and
longevity of “Black Panther’s” prospects.

“There’s always going to be
competition in the marketplace,” he says. “With a
tentpole strategy like ours, four weeks of separation is
about what we can expect.”

Still, “Black Panther” has devoured
the marketplace for a month straight now, leaving all other
newcomers in the dust.

The new horror film “The Strangers: Prey
At Night,” with Christina Hendricks, took third place with
$10.5 million. The Jennifer Lawrence thriller “Red
Sparrow” landed in fourth in its second weekend with $8.2
million and the comedy “Game Night” placed fifth with
$7.9 million in weekend three.

Hardly any of the new releases, which also
included the thriller “The Hurricane Heist” (8th place,
$3.2 million) and the dark action comedy “Gringo,” (11th
place, $2.6 million) were well-reviewed going into the
weekend, save for the limited release independents like
“Thoroughbreds,” which made $1.2 million from 549
locations, and Armando Iannucci’s “The Death of
Stalin,” which opened in four theaters to $181,000.

It also left room for the Academy Award
best picture winner “The Shape of Water,” which is also
available on home video, to capitalize on its post-Oscars
stature. The Fox Searchlight film added 720 theaters and
took in in $2.4 million from 1,552 locations, bringing its
domestic total to $61 million.

But even though “Black Panther” has
helped boost the year to date box office significantly,
it’s also proving to be a continued challenge for any
other wide release hoping for a piece of the market.

“Every movie that has opened in the wake
of ‘Black Panther’ has had its work cut out for it,”
says comScore senior media analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “We
keep underestimating this film and it just shows no sign of
slowing down.”

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through
Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to comScore.
Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday
through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures
will be released Monday.

Serena Williams: ‘Doctors Aren’t
Listening’ So Black Women Are Dying

The tennis superstar is also speaking up
about the need for improved maternal health care,
particularly for black women.

“Doctors aren’t
listening to us, just to be quite frank,” she
told the BBC after a tennis exhibition in New York City on
Monday, noting that black women are three times more
likely than white women to die during pregnancy or
childbirth. “It may be time for women to be comfortable
with having uncomfortable conversations.”

Williams experienced a pulmonary
embolism (blockage
that occurs in the lungs) after giving birth via
C-section. Because she had had blood clots before, the
athlete knew what symptoms to look out for and alerted her
doctor as to what was going on. Williams also knew
which tests to request.

“I was in a really fortunate situation
where I know my body well, and I am who I am, and I told
the doctor: ‘I don’t feel right, something’s
wrong.’ She immediately listened,” Williams told
BBC. “She was great. I had a wonderful, wonderful
doctor. Unfortunately a lot of African-Americans and black
people don’t have the same experience that I’ve
had.”

There’s a lot of
pre-judging, absolutely, that definitely goes on. And it
needs to be addressed.

Had the tennis superstar not known her
body as well as she did and advocated for doctors to
listen to her, she might not be here today.

“Because of what I went through, it
would be really difficult if I didn’t have the health
care that I have ― and to imagine all the other
women that do go through that without the same health
care, without the same response, it’s upsetting,” she
said. “I think there’s a lot of pre-judging,
absolutely, that definitely goes on. And it needs to be
addressed.”

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